By Gene Emery
12-28-00
BOSTON (Reuters) - The risk of developing an antibiotic-resistant
infection rose by about a third from 1995 to 1998, the
latest warning that antibiotics are losing their effectiveness
due to overuse, researchers reported in Thursday's New
England Journal of Medicine.
Extensive use in both people and animals is breeding new
generations of bugs that withstand antibiotics, drugs that
revolutionized medicine when they were introduced in the
middle of the 20th century. The declining effectiveness
of antibiotics is a serious concern to the medical community.
The new study focused on Streptococcus pneumoniae, the
most commonly identified cause of meningitis, pneumonia
and middle ear infections in the United States. The findings
illustrated that the risk of developing an antibiotic-resistant
bacterial infection rose substantially between 1995 and
1998.
Among those who developed a Streptococcus pneumoniae infection,
14 percent in 1998 had one resistant to at least three
different types of antibiotics, compared to 9 percent in
1995.
"Multidrug-resistant pneumococci are common and are
increasing,'' said the research team, led by Dr. Cynthia
Whitney of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
in Atlanta.
Millions Of Pounds Of Antibiotics Consumed Annually
About 160 million antibiotic prescriptions are written
in the United States each year for some 25 million pounds
(11.3 million kg) of antibiotics. About half of those prescriptions
are unnecessary, according to an editorial in the Journal.
Animals are fed a similar amount of antibiotics.
The new study's findings were based on tests of 3,475
samples from 1998 from all over the country. Twenty-four
percent of the bacteria in the samples were resistant to
penicillin, and the rate ranged up to 35 percent in Tennessee
and down to 15 percent in New York and California.
Once the bacteria had adapted to fight off penicillin,
the researchers found, they were likely to be able to withstand
the onslaught of other types of antibiotics as well.
One answer, researchers said, is to take greater care
in the use of the drugs, which are so common they are often
included in the food of livestock.
Another is to immunize people against pneumococcal infections
through vaccination. The vaccine, already used for adults,
recently has become available to young children in the
United States.
In their editorial, Drs. Richard Wenzel and Michael Edmond
of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond said routinely
immunizing infants in the United States would prevent 53,000
cases of pneumonia, 12,000 cases of meningitis and 110
deaths each year.
The elderly and those with weak immune systems also face
a high risk of death or illness from pneumococcal infections.
"We need to reassess policies on antibiotic use while
changing our approach to include vaccinations against pneumococcal
infections of all children over the age of 4, all adults
over age 65, and all people with HIV infection,'' Wenzel
and Edmond said.
Similar article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1090723.stm
